THE MORAL OF IT

Evening Star, Issue 18502, 8 December 1923, Page 2

THE MORAL OF IT

It would not bo a melodrama if it had not a moral sticking out plainly for all the world to see. It is tho function of melodrama to thrust its moral in our faces, down our throaty so that wo must see it nnd take it in. The moral of ‘ R.U.R.’ is not inappropriate for these times. But first let us indicate the story of the play. The initials stand for “Rossum’s Universal Robots,” and the play is described as “a fantastic melodrama” by Mr Karel Capclc. Wo can cut out the love interest: that is but jam to the pill, concession to tho gods, Tho gist of tho thing is independent of it. There is old Rossum and young Rossum, undo nnd nephew; tho former a man of science, the latter a rnnn of business. The old man, after long research and many experiments, has discovered how to make living things—artificial dogs, for instance. Ho wants to make an artificial man. His nephew secs money. Hot a man, not quite a man, but a living machine, without sense, without soul, but able to do the drudgeries for men—it would bo far better to make that. Tho thing is done. It is a “Robot.” And soon a huge factory is turning out “ robots ” by the hundred, to tho great relief of the human race. No more drudgery, no more tod! Man no longer earns his bread by the sweat of his brow. Ho purchases a few robots and lives at his ease. Tho robots have no sort of feelings, no sorb of personalities. They are mere tilings. If they break, if they go wrong in any way, they can be sent back to tho factory, put through tho crushers, ground down, and made over again. They are much too apt to hrcak--that is the ono fault of them, They can’t take care of themselves. They knock themselves about. It is an expensive business keeping them in repair. There 's another man of science about tho works. Ho takes up the problem of making them more efficient by making them take care of themselves. Ho solves it by endowing them with sensibility to pain. The new models feel it when they hit their fingers with a hammer, or burn their hands in the forgo, or break their legs. It is a great improvement, and the old models are Boon scrapped.

But—hero tbs moral pops out—pain means consciousness of some sort. Tho robot lias discovered that there is a difference betweon it. and what is not it. Pain means self-consciousness, and self-con-sciousness develops with experience. Comes knowledge nnd power. Tho robots turn upon their human creators, nnd all but exterminate them. Tho world is in their hands i men are nowhere. Tho nest step looms ahead. Time passes. Ton years and more aro gone, and a robot lasts only twenty years. Another lustrum nnd the end of them will bo at hand. Nor can they make any to take their place. Tho formula has been lost, (This is the work of the lady of tho love story.) A great anxiety possesses them. What is to bo done? The worry of it somehow draws them closer to each other. Something like sympathy springs up; they share each other’s trouble about the impending dissolution. Then of necessity sympathy bears its fruit, bitter-sweet i and “the play ends with a young robot and robotesa going out into the world suffering from now and unaccountable symptoms, such as inability to live without each other, willingness to sacrifice everything for the other's welfare, laughter, nnd a quickened heart-beat.” In other words, the robots have become human ; and it was Pain that did it.

In these case and pleasure-loving days wo have grown very sensitive to pain. Worse than that, we have grown indignant at it, and resentful of it. It seems to us out of all reason that such n thing as suffering should bo at all. Wo don’t like it, we don’t want it; therefore it is intolerable that it should bo. It is a blot, a blemish, and a bad one, on an otherwise pretty {.air universe. Quito curious are some of tho reactions to this hateful thing. There are those among us who try to ignore and even deny its existence. Your head doesn't ache, they tell you; you just think it docs. Refuse to think of tho pain, refuse to recognise it, and it will go. Cut it dead, a; it were, when it conics to meet you, nnd you will not bo troubled with its approaches any more. But to cut your poor relation docs not put him out of existence. Ho remains your poor relation still. And if ho is bent on worrying you ho will not bo put off by any supercilious haughtiness on your part. You will simply bo compelled to come to terms with him Some folks, who cannot persuade themselves ol tho unreality of pain, accept it as a fact of experience, and blame tho devil for it. Vs hat a convenience the devil is, and what a comfortable thing it is to believe in him Icartily. Ho has fine broad shoulders, and can bear any amount of responsibility. And bn has no friends. You can shift your load of guilt on to his head, saying he tempted you. 110 won’t resent it on bus own behalf, and nobody 7 will resent it for him. You can attribute all the suffering in all the world to him —surely a good Hod never meant men to suffer —the devil will nut prosecute you for slander. Such a method of solving the problem is highly satisfactory. It provides an explanation without pulling you to tho trouble of thinking much. Hie explanation is old; it goes bade to Zoroaster and the Zend Avesta. But it was never rery satisfactory, and it does not improve with age.

It is a more modest speculation, that inclines to take tho blame of pain upon oneself; and it may bo a sign of grace that it has found no little favor among us of late. Rain, sickness, suffering, wo aro told, is due to spiritual conditions. It is because we are not right with God, our nature not in harmony, our wills not submitted to His will. In other words, our suffering is duo to our sin. Ihore wore certain comments passed on this theory long ago, but they arc forgotten by its advocates to-day. Tho truth is that the theory docs not cover tho facts. It covers some of them, but not all. Certainly there is a measurable amount of

suffering that is directly traceable to evildoing. There is no need to specify the kind —everybody knows it. Certainly, too, there are mental conditions that aggravate physical weaknesses: worry docs it, and discontent, and ill-temper. But quite as certainly there are pains to bo borne in this life which are not so to be accounted for. Other people may have done the evil. Or there may have been no evil, in the onbnary sense, dons at all; only sheer ignorance may have caused the trouble. It was nobody’s fault that the tower of Siloam fell: nobody know that the ground was too shifty to bear (ho weight of it. In the mass, we may say, pain may be traceable to sin or to : gnorance somewhere; but, if it is, wo may not always bo able to get rid of our share of it by prayer and the laying on of hands. We may have to wait till the ignorance and the fin are all cleared away first. There is a deal of a priori reasoning about God behind all those, indignant reactions to pain. “ A good God can’t mean me to suffer ” is the argument} os though we knew for certain what a good God might or might not moan. Though none of us may be in love with pain, pain may bo a very good thing for na. There seems to bo somewhere in us an instinct that recognises a good in it. At any rate we can hardly give our whole-hearted admiration to Gerard Mauley Hopkins’s sentiment: I have, desired to go Whore springs not fail, To fields where flics no sharp and sided hail .1 Ami a few lilies blow. And I have asked to be Where no storms conio^, Where the green swell is in the haven dumb, And out of the swing-of the sea. Wo respond rather to a clarion cry like Browning’s! Welcome each rebuff That turns earth’s smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go! Be our joys three parts pain I Strive, and hold cheap the strain} Learn, nor account' the pang; dare, never grudge the throe. Our hearts go out to him Who, doomed to go in company with Pain, Turns his necessity to glorious gain. For pain is a dark wrappage in which lie concealed some very rich gifts both for individual men and for the race. The thing to remember is that mankind is but in the making, Nobody has seen the finished article yet. We are just in process. The end the process aims at is surely something great and worthy. The ideal man, perfect and complete, will be something more than a consummate Enjoyer. He will be a Doer, surely; one who can know and think and plan and achieve. Power, insight, strength of will will be among his endowments, and sympathy, loyalty, love. But how are those qualities to bo developed except they bo stirred and stimulated and exercised ? And what is going to stimulate and exercise them now but the combat with pain ? Pain, if we cannot get rid of it, is a discipline that may at least teach ns endurance. The effort to get rid of it urges us to the pursuit of knowledge, to scientific investigation, to co-operative experiment, “ Thought, true labor of any kind, highest virtue itself, is it not the daughter of Pain,” asks Carlyle. Pain is not to be got rid of by any sort of magic: only by long search for the cause of it and faithful getting rid of ; the cause. Pain is not an accident in the : universe, bid a design. It is not in- i compatible with goodness in the Creator, i If the Creator wanted to develop men— I not mere parasites, but beings who could know and feel and do—then the possibility of pain in the world seems reasonable enough. “ Even more than knowledge,” someone has said, ” pain is power, because it develops the latent capacities of our being as no other influence can.” It was pain that made the robots men: it is pain that keeps men from becoming robots.

DUNEDIN KINDERGARTENS

-cue mummy mooting or uio commmei of the Dune-din Free Kindergarten Association was held on Thursdny afternoon Those attending wore Miss Alexandra (president), Mesdames Hutchison, Isaacs Glendining, Gilkison, Brickoll, Smith M'Le.’ui, Taverner, Wright, Solomon Bidey, Phillips, Cameron, Lough, and Mis; Kelsey. The question of a suitable building foi tho Onvorsham Kindergarten” for next yeai came up for discussion, tho Baptist Church being unable longer to accommodate it, Mosdames Wright, Phillips, and Tavernei were authorised to make arrangements fin the use of some other ball if possible. The following students gained theii diplomas:—Misses Croft, d’Auvergne, Reid, Grant, Allen, Goldsmid. Miss Read is else fitting for her Government examination. Honors were awarded in tho following subjects :— 'Miss Croft, for class teaching, handwork, and hygiene; Miss cTAuvergne, for ola , !f teaching, handwork, hygiene, and art; Miss Grant, for Nature study and art; Miss Reid, for handwork nnd art. All the ten junior students passed thoii first-year tests. Thanks are duo to the following examiners :—Professor J). P. White, Dr Marion Whyte, Misses Dalrymple, Goldsmith, Hutton, Burton (2), Pormin. It was- decided to advertise vacancies for students for 1924-2.5, the course being a two-year one. Arrangements for the presentation of diplomas on December 10 were discussed.

Tho kindergartens break up for the holidays as follows;—Reynolds and Caversham on tho morning of iho 14th, nnd St. Kilda and Kaikorai on tho afternoon of the same day. Kelsey- Yaralla will break tip on Saturday, tho 15th, in tho morning.

The question of opening another kinder pnrten in Dunedin wns discussed. Th five already established are proving such : benefit to their neighborhoods that th oonnnitteo focla that it is a pity rnor children should not have tho same advan

tages, Tho committee expressed its appreciation of the work done during the year by tho sub-committees at KViikorai and St. Kildn. and of Miss Dutton’s work with tho students.

The collector handed in subscriptions amountin/r to £45 6s.